


Fog Haze

by Dayadhvam



Category: Atlanta (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-21 22:50:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13153674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dayadhvam/pseuds/Dayadhvam
Summary: Darius and Alfred after noon, ft. Ahmad White as Anonymous.





	Fog Haze

**Author's Note:**

  * For [havisham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/gifts).



> Title was snagged from "[Summer Dog Days](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnYIzk-0Uso)" by The Remnant.

A long night, last night was: remembered as scattered fragments, with the world’s outcries trickling into his mind to bury themselves like earthworms before the rain. A Dodge scooting in front of him, its wheels squealing like stuck pigs—if only tire rubber were so edible; the shimmer of neon signs upon his windshield like a carpet of insect wings; the lights at traffic intersections as cool as hardened amber, and just as merciless. At one light turned red, a bald man crossing the street: he’d worn a bow tie, tight and snug in the hollow of his neck—and trailing in his wake, the shadow of a dog…

The man had stopped to look at Darius. But then the light had turned green; Darius’ foot had kissed the gas pedal; and the bowtied man had dissolved into the night.

A long night, last night was. So wake time’s past noon for Darius: he revives from a dead sleep to find himself in the kitchen searching for sustenance, while light blasts its way through the curtains to glance off his skin-shielded skull. Useless cloth now, anyhow, so he whisks the drapes aside and squints up. Then down, at the open fridge.

“We got no eggs,” Darius says. No eggs, not for them; but the sky’s got its own yolk all high and mighty and bleeding gold.

“You said that yesterday.” Alfred’s voice floats into his ears from the next room over, couch-sated and woke-old. “After the cookies.” Paper Boi follows close on his words— _Got a team to serve the fiend_ , barks the disembodied soul—then falls silent, as Alfred pauses his music video and his scrutiny thereof.

Darius closes the fridge. He rattles the cereal box for a volume check and then rattles the contents into a bowl. “So I’m considering,” he says. “How about we get chickens.”

“Why the fuck we need an alarm clock? Yeah, no, man, not gonna happen.”

“No, no, you got cocks on your mind. I mean, they are alarm clocks, and they could mess with a dog if we needed, but I mean hens—chicken hens, not chicken cocks, so we don’t worry about eggs.”

“Not gonna worry about chickens either, or their sick shit going round us like bird flu.”

“They say that, but we ain’t birds. No flying so no flu,” Darius says. Maybe in a past nightmare he flew all high and mighty and got cut down by an amoral zombifying virus, but it wasn’t last night’s case—for that had been a dead sleep and a strange one, from which he’d woken with the taint of sticky sweet Nutella in his mouth.

Usually his morning-after cheeks are stuffed full by cotton boll ghosts. Either way, it’s all shit aftertaste.

“Not gonna worry about chickens,” Alfred repeats, then relents a little. “Look, we still got wings left somewhere in there. But no sauce.”

A real tragedy. “Nah, I’m good,” Darius replies; he takes up a spoon and digs into the cereal. But it’s poor sustenance. The taint of his sleep lingers; the day’s past noon.

Darius really, really wants a sandwich.

**Author's Note:**

> Darius comes home a few days afterward with a new apron. It's striped peppermint red and white, and populated by prancing chickens.
> 
> "Really," says Alfred.
> 
> "Hens and cocks," Darius informs him. "Best of both worlds."
> 
> aka the chicken-patterned apron Darius wears in episode 1 :D


End file.
